Why I Want Countercult to Franchise and Invest in Property Technology
After building Countercult’s network, software, and live cultural work, Shona Neary writes about growing the model without taking local authorship away from the people who make a place.
I built Countercult's product and software because artists and cultural places should be easier to find, connect, and work with. I have also spent years making things happen in real rooms, from Klunkerkranich to The Delta, and building relationships across art, local culture, business, and technology. I do not see those as separate parts of my work.
The next question is how Countercult grows without losing what makes the work useful. I do not want every project to depend on me personally being in the room, and I do not want growth to mean taking local knowledge out of the places that created it.
A franchise has to leave room for the place
I want Countercult to franchise a model that local operators can make their own. The framework should carry what we have learned about bringing people, property, and cultural work together. The programme and relationships should belong to the people who know the local conditions.
That is different from exporting a look or repeating a city’s cultural life as a product. A place needs local leadership, fair agreements, and the freedom to decide what fits. If we cannot protect those things, the model is not ready to travel.
I want us to invest in the property technology we believe in
Property technology shapes who gets access to space, how a building is used, and where value goes. I want Countercult to make its own investments in that field and build tools around real cultural and operating needs, not treat software as a layer added after the important decisions are made.
I am not describing an investment portfolio that already exists. This is the direction I want us to build toward. The technology has to support people who operate places, artists and producers who create value there, and the local networks that make a place more than a building.
Make what we have learned usable by more people
Countercult's work gives us practical knowledge about how local relationships connect to commercial projects and physical places. Studios lets us apply that knowledge in paid work now. Franchising and our own property-technology investments are a longer horizon for putting more of that infrastructure into the hands of the people who can use it.
I want Countercult to become a company that can build, back, and support cultural places over time. That future should expand what local people can do, not make their work easier to extract.
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A first-person essay about Shona Neary's stated future vision for Countercult. Franchising and Countercult's own property-technology investments are ambitions, not current live offerings or an existing portfolio.
This piece was informed by Shona Neary’s writing, conversations, and thinking around independent culture, artists, and place.
How this Journal is made: Countercult publishes writing from years of work across independent culture, local economies, artist-led technology, and place. These essays, field notes, guides, and case studies make that knowledge useful and help artists, operators, and commissioners find one another. The Journal is human-authored; AI supports infrastructure, not authorship or artists' work. We welcome original reporting and pitches from journalists and independent publishers.